On the night of his disappearance, John Paul Elmes (23), known as Johnny, had gone socialising with friends in Wexford town, to celebrate the offer of a recently won place on an accountancy course at the Waterford Institute of Technology. John Paul, who lived with his mother in Newbawn, 14 miles outside Wexford, planned to crash that night at his brother’s house. Sadly things didn’t work out that way. John Paul Elmes vanished, apparently without a trace – the last reported sighting of him alive was at 2.30am on September 17, 2006, as according to eyewitness accounts – as he made his way towards Wexford Bridge.

On September 23, after a week of frantic searching, Johnny’s body was discovered by a passing woman, where it had resurfaced, at the water’s edge along Ardcaven Lane. As yet there is no clear picture as to what happened on the night of the 17th September 2007. What we do know is that John Paul’s mother, Breda Elmes, is deeply unhappy with the way in which the investigation into his death has been handled by the Gardai.
Tellingly, the inquest had to be postponed last month when Breda refused to accept a verdict of death by drowning, which would have indicated an accidental death or suicide.
The circumstances surrounding the death are suspicious – and Hot Press has learned that Breda recently presented the Gardai with a list of 25 questions that she wants answered in this regard.

BLOW TO THE HEAD
In particular there is the fact that when the body of John Paul was discovered there were no possessions on him – everything had disappeared, including his mobile phone, house keys, a driving licence, a concert ticket and e400 from a work cheque he had cashed earlier that fatal day. None of these items have subsequently been recovered.
Speaking to Hot Press, Breda was adamant that she wants her questions answered. “I can’t understand how he would wash up with nothing in his pockets,” she said. “Johnny always carried his driving licence with him as ID because of the fact that he looked very young. Surely something would have been found on him? The guards have never been able to give me a straight or plausible answer as to why they never found any of these listed items.”
Breda has also dismissed eyewitness accounts, contained in the Garda report, of her son walking across the bridge in Wexford Town on the night in question. She explained: “I have been told that Johnny was last seen going towards the far side of the bridge, but Johnny had no reason to go that way because he was going to his brother’s home – which is in a completely different direction. Johnny would only have gone in that direction if he was being chased.
“I never got to see his body, but there was a mark on his head. I was told that it was probably caused by him hitting the seabed, but how do they know that? The mark could have been from a blow to the head before he went into the water.”

LOOKING FOR JUSTICE
The first anniversary of Johnny’s passing was marked last week with a remembrance mass at his local parish church, near his family home in Newbawn. It was against that backdrop that his still heartbroken mother made her call to the Gardai, to open a fresh investigation into her son’s mysterious death.
Breda believes that her son was murdered and says that she is perplexed by the Gardai’s apparent reluctance to pursue this line of enquiry. She has dismissed the theory that her son committed suicide.
“He would never have taken his own life,” she insists. “Everybody that knew him agrees that it was not suicide. John was in great form on the day he disappeared and he was looking forward to being the godfather of his brother’s daughter, Eva Mary. But sadly this never happened. He had also talked about his dreams of one day having his own family.”
Johnny is the second of Breda’s six children to die tragically. Twenty years ago, a two-year-old daughter, Mary, died in Breda’s arms after suffering brain complications from a deadly strain of the chicken pox virus. “Johnny was a good chap and was never in trouble,” she says. “At one stage he had talked about being a priest. He was an honours student and was a mathematical genius.
“All the evidence available,” she adds, “points to the fact that my son did not go into the water of his own accord. I refuse to accept that my son committed suicide. I am looking for justice and I am calling on the Gardai to investigate his death properly. The guards just automatically assumed that it was suicide, but I am 100 percent sure that somebody murdered him. I know he drowned but how did he drown is the real question? I will not give up looking for truth until the day I die."

DOING THE GUARDS WORK
Breda says she is “bitterly disappointed” by the Gardai’s unwillingness to open a murder enquiry – prompting her to undertake her own detective work as she attempts to unravel the mystery surrounding her son’s tragic death.
“People tell me that I am very brave to have taken on the system,” she says. “I am actually doing the guards work by going around and asking questions. I am angry that they have forced me to take on my own investigation. I don’t want to criticise all the local Gardai, but I feel I have been fobbed off and pushed aside. They are saying that all the answers went to the grave with Johnny – but surely some people seen him before he died?”
Why, she implies, have they not come forward? “I get the impression that the Guards are hoping I will go away and stop bothering them. But I won’t go away until I have justice.
“I understand that no amount of feeling sorry will bring him back, but I won’t have any closure until I know exactly what happened to my son.”